The Newspaper that Comes Through Your Walls (1922)

Many newspapers were affiliated with early broadcasting stations, either through direct ownership, or by providing programming to the stations. However, there quickly was a backlash by the newspapers against the competition brought by radio news, and through the late 1930s news programs on U.S. radio stations would be severely restricted. And it was only in the 1960s that U.S. stations started adopting "all news" formats, finally bringing into existence the kind of in-depth "radio newspaper" this article talks about.

Popular Radio, September, 1922, pages 11-16:

From a photograph made for Popular Radio

A LIVE NEWS STORY IN THE AIR

The newspaper of the near future will not depend solely upon wires for collecting its information. Today stories are being received by city editors from reporters miles away who use radio-equipped motor cars. The picture shows W. P. B. McNeary of the Newark Sunday Call, receiving a news item by radio.

The Newspaper that Comes Through Your Walls
The "Radio Newspaper" Is No Longer a Theory; It Has Arrived--Abroad. In This Country the Wireless is Being Used Both for Collecting and Disseminating News. This Article Tells How.
By HOMER CROY

THE PRESS GALLERY AT THE FIRST FOOTBALL GAME EVER BROADCASTED

The reporter using the telephone is "Sandy" Hunt, former Cornell guard, reporting the first intercollegiate contest that was ever described by radio, play by play, in October, 1921. The story was sent from the field to the operating room of station WJZ at Newark over a private wire, whence it was broadcasted. Several intercollegiate games were similarly reported later that season.

IN Budapest there is a newspaper that has no printing presses and no newsboys. It is a large and flourishing newspaper and, as far as I know, all its subscribers are satisfied. It has never been "scooped" and there is little likelihood that such a catastrophe will soon happen. It begins to give its news to the public at nine o'clock in the morning and it does not stop until ten o'clock in the evening. On opera nights it does even better; on such occasions it stretches its service a little and gives its subscribers the opera.
The newspaper is called The Telephone-Hirmondo and has been in existence for twenty-eight years.
As its name implies it is a telephone newspaper. It furnishes news direct to its subscribers by an elaborate system of party lines. All a subscriber has to do is to step to the telephone and put the receiver to his ear. To each subscriber is furnished a schedule showing the hours different news goes out: local, national, world news, sports, fashions. Fiction stories are read to the subscribers, speeches are delivered; puzzles are told and English is taught to all who wish to learn it. Even serials running in local motion picture shows are read to subscribers; that night a person may go to the theatre and see for himself the story his newspaper has told him. Budapest's telephone newspaper is not an experiment; not some vague, uncertain, half-baked theory. It has been a success for more than a quarter of a century.

From a photograph made for Popular Radio

THE FIRST AUTOMOBILE TRANSMITTING STATION TO BE LICENSED

Equipped with a radio transmitting set, this car was sent out on a news assignment by the Newark Sunday Call on May 6, 1922--the first recorded instance of its kind. The car bears the call letters 2CNJ. In the Picture Emery H. Lee, the radio inspector is seen measuring the wavelength, which was exactly 200 meters.

    Germany is a step ahead of this! Just outside Berlin the German government has a newspaper that instead of sending out news by telephone, sends into the air. At certain hours it sends out government news, political news, sports and so on. But Germany rules its radio with a heavy hand; in this regard it takes itself very seriously. Every radio set which goes out is licensed and watched. The person who installs the set is allowed to receive but one kind of news; the government authorities see to that and lock the box. This is done by sending out different kinds of news on varying wavelengths; the owner of the set can receive only the kind his license calls for.
    We would not stand for that in this country, but just the same there is an idea behind it--the radio newspaper is coming. It is assured. France and Italy both have been watching Germany's experiment with the radio newspaper and now are planning to install equipment for disseminating news--but on a much more liberal policy.
    The United States has never gone into the radio newspaper as a governmental proposition, but in this country our newspapers are far and away ahead of European newspapers--when it comes to hitching up to radio of their own accord. Over there they are just beginning to scratch their heads and wonder if there isn't something in the idea, while in this country eight of ten individual newspapers are actually broadcasting.
    It will be recalled that last summer the world was awaiting the outcome of a battle in Jersey City, where two men were stripped to their waists to fight for life or death. In all parts of the country the hours were counted on that day when Messrs. Dempsey and Carpentier drew crowds of excited fight fans to Boyle's Bowl. Newspapers found that there was but one "story" for them that day--all other happenings were small "items."

THE POWER PLANT OF THE RADIO STATION OF A MIDDLE-WESTERN DAILY

One of the best-equipped transmitting stations in the country is WWJ, maintained by the Detroit News for broadcasting both entertainment and news features. The picture shows the 5½ H.P. motor, driving a 1600-volt, 1-kilowatt plate current generator and a 16-volt, 615-watt filament current-generator, providing power for the transmitter tubes.

    The Seattle Post-Intelligencer had an idea. Why not get the news to the people in and around Seattle fast--faster than presses could run? It was the first time such a thing had ever been tried. Steam was put behind it and arrangements were made with a local radio distributing company, and a sending outfit was engaged for the day. The paper spread it on the first page and Boyle's Bowl was practically taken up and dumped down in Seattle. The people in that city were almost as close to the two heated gentlemen as were the owners of the fifty-dollar seats. The fight was practically as much of a success in Seattle as it was in Jersey City. After the final and lamented fourth round, the paper thought the excitement was over; they told the radio company to come and take the equipment away.
    But the next day the letters began to pour in. Why couldn't the paper give the subscribers news by radio all the time?
    That would be biting off a big chunk, especially in view of the fact that never before had such a news service been rendered. But the newspaper sank its teeth and pried off an experiment. Now on top of the building it has a radio room and tower antennae 105 feet tall. Six hours a day it sends out news--anything, everything. It furnishes music for charity dances, civic organizations, luncheon parties, entertainments for graded schools to raise funds for baseball suits, entertainment for disabled soldiers, music and speeches for patients in hospitals; for style shows, hardware meetings and even helps teach radio in the high schools of the state. Every Friday night it hires an orchestra, brings it to its own sending room and puts on a dance program. Friday night radio dances are now being held not only in Seattle, but in Spokane, San Francisco, Portland, Vancouver, B. C., and even in Craig, Alaska. As if this were not enough, word came from a ship on the Pacific that its passengers had shaken a wicked foot in response to the same tintinnabulations. On top of this the Chamber of Commerce in Butte, Montana, wanted to have a social where their wives and sweethearts could be brought together. The radio brought them----.

International

REPORTING A WORLD'S SERIES BY RADIO

The sporting editor, G. A. Falzer, is here seen using an ordinary telephone for reporting the baseball games at the Polo grounds, New York, in 1921. But his telephonic talk went to a broadcasting station, where it was broadcasted.

    At first it was thought that only residents in and around Seattle would be able to hear the radio programs, but such was not the case. The S. S. Montgomery City was 3,600 miles out in the Pacific when it picked up Seattle, and messages inland have gone as far as Minot, N. D. When the paper started its broadcast there were only 284 receiving sets within range; now, it is estimated, there are 20,000. That is how things have moved along in the world of radio.
    In the meantime the wheel of progress was rolling on in other parts of the United States. Newark, for instance, where you would not expect to find much hustle. And the experiment in radio was not by a daily, either, but by a Sunday paper--The Newark Sunday Call.
    The World's Series came along, October 5th, 1921, and a man went to the Polo Grounds and there put the news on a telegraph line. In the office of the Sunday Call it was taken down and then hustled on a telephone line. This came to one of the editors in the newly established broadcasting station of the Westinghouse Company and there the man spoke into the transmitter and sent it up into the air.
    The experiment was a success. Things began to move along for the paper and it originated bedtime stories for children, and started broadcasting news. This went out about half-past eight in the evening. It made such a success of it that the paper began broadcasting in the day time, beginning at ten o'clock in the morning and continuing throughout the day on the hour. Broadcasting breathed the breath of life into amateur radio, and on October 16th this paper started a radio department of two pages--the first radio section started by a newspaper. The people couldn't get enough of it. It was not long until a New York paper took a nibble--and then sank its teeth. Radio departments sprang up with the speed credited to toadstools, although personally I have never seen one do this amazing feat.

THE FIRST TIME THAT A HORSE RACE WAS BROADCASTED

The methods of the race-track crooks who swindle guileless bettors by "tips" over private wires will have to change when racing news is reported by radio. The officials at the Bowie (Maryland) track recently transmitted the results of the races by radio--although although in this particular picture the results are apparently being transmitted by a receiving set.

Newspaper after newspaper started departments until now two New York newspapers get out a whole magazine section each Saturday devoted to the wonders of wireless. But they were not content for long merely to run programs and conduct departments. The Detroit News began to broadcast; others began to itch, and now The Hartford Courant, started before the Revolutionary War began, has felt the urge of the latest departure in journalism. Other papers are taking it up; soon, no doubt, a metropolitan newspaper which does not broadcast will be considered quaint and a bit inclined to old-fashioned ways.
Two things may happen, and both of them, it must be known, are entirely in the realm of speculation. There is no definite fact to substantiate it--only a few straws blowing in the wind. In the future the newspapers will broadcast in their territories. St Louis will have newspapers sending out their silent appeals on different wavelengths; Omaha will be doing the same; Waco, Wheeling, Woonsocket. They will send out local news. For example: "George Washington Jones, the millionaire manufacturer of folding wash boards, was arrested this afternoon for speeding and was fined $4." The license numbers of stolen automobiles will be given out and the police departments will be assisted in recovering the missing property, as they have been already in several cities. Local, grain and crop markets will be sent out; whether wheat is up or down, what activity potatoes show and what chickens are doing--the domesticated variety, that is. Gossip, sports, local news items will go out.

"The building is still burning. Firemen with their oxygen helmets are feeling their way through the smoke . . . A child has been found . . . It is alive . . . It's mother is weeping"----

So the reports of the future will go out. The idea seems fantastic? So did the application of radio to Boyle's Bowl a year ago.
There is only one safe bet about radio; and that is not to try to judge its future by its past.

International

A DAILY NEWSPAPER THAT SENDS OUT NEWS BY RADIO

The San Francisco Examiner broadcasts both local items and news of national moment from its station in the Examiner Building, as well as the usual weather reports and market quotations.

United States Early Radio History > Broadcasting Becomes Widespread > Public Adoption of a New Technology